Rodriguez Shines as Baseball Rolls to 3-0 Win

Manny Rodriguez showed off some impressive weapons in his repertoire on Friday. Photo by Joel Auerbach.

MIAMI SHORES, Fla.—The Barry Baseball team blazed through the home opener on the strong arm of Manny Rodriguez with a 3-0 shutout win on Friday against the Georgia Southwestern Hurricanes.

In front of a dozen scouts, Rodriguez tossed seven innings of one-hit baseball; totaling 11 strikeouts and no walks on 89 pitches. The junior transfer’s fastball sweltered to 95 mph at times and held the Hurricanes hitless for the first five innings of play.

“I was very impressed with Manny tonight,” head coach Marc Pavao said. “One of the things we have been working on with him is going after hitter early, being aggressive, and keeping his pitch count down. He did just that tonight. He could throw his fastball wherever he wanted to. To give us seven innings at the number of pitches he threw was absolutely great.”

The Buccaneers scored their first run of the 2011 season in the third inning on a Ryan Garcia sacrifice fly to right field. Senior center fielder Drew Dwelly led off the third with a walk then stole second. Senior transfer Dean Green advanced Dwelly to third on a single to center then Garcia lifted one to deep right field for the RBI.

Barry added two more insurance runs in the sixth after senior catch Chris Leon earned his first RBI of the season on walk with the bases loaded to score Garcia. Freshman Adrian English then scored on a flyball to center field by Julio Ramos to give Barry a 3-0 advantage.

T.J. Mullins took the mound in the eighth inning, giving up one hit but preserving the shutout and left the Hurricanes scoreless after eight.

Buccaneer closer Tyler King entered the game in the top of the ninth and worked out of a two-on, no-out jam to earn his first save of the season and the Bucs' first win.

Barry continues the series against the Hurricanes Saturday, Feb. 5 with a double header starting at 1:00 p.m. Live coverage of the game can be heard on the Buccaneer Broadcasting Network starting right before the first pitch.